Radio resource management system and radio resource management method

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure provides a radio resource management system and method. The radio resource management system includes a control device for determining, based on geographical location information of at least one secondary system and at least one primary system managed by the radio resource management system, a radio resource available to the at least one secondary system among licensed radio resources of the at least one primary system when the primary system is not interfered with, the control device including a selection unit for selecting at least one object liable to be interfered with by the secondary system managed by another radio resource management system from the at least one primary system, from the at least one secondary system, or from the at least one primary system and the at least one secondary system based on the geographical location information; and a communication device for transmitting the geographical location information of the at least one object selected by the selection unit to the another radio resource management system. The present disclosure can reduce an information interaction between radio resource management systems.

INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE

This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No.14/736,374, filed on Jun. 11, 2015, which claims priority to ChineseApplication No. 201410280913.3 filed on Jun. 20, 2014. The disclosuresof the applications referenced above are incorporated herein byreference in their entireties.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present disclosure relates to radio resource management in wirelesscommunication, and in particular, to a radio resource management systemand a radio resource management method for managing usage of a radioresource of a secondary system in a communication system withoutinterfering with a primary system in the communication system.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

With the development of wireless communication technology, radioresources are increasingly insufficient. To take full advantage of thelimited radio resources, a practicable solution is to dynamicallyutilize those radio resources that have been allocated to a certainservice but have not been sufficiently utilized. More specifically, withrespect to a primary system having a right to use the radio resources,the radio resources that have not been sufficiently utilized by theprimary system are allocated to an unlicensed secondary system withoutaffecting the usage by the primary system, such that the secondarysystem appropriately utilizes the licensed radio resources of theprimary system without affecting the usage of the radio resources by theprimary system.

In order to ensure that the usage of radio spectrum resources by therespective primary system and secondary system is within an allowableinterference range, in addition to impact of interference of thesecondary system managed by the same radio resource management system(such as a geographical location information database, GLDB), impact ofinterference of the secondary system managed by an other adjacent radioresource management system (especially, the secondary system located atan edge of coverage range of the radio resource management system) shallbe considered. In this case, interaction of information of the secondarysystems managed by different radio resource management systems istypically performed therebetween, so as to ensure that the secondarysystem managed by the radio resource management system does not bring anadverse effect to communication quality of the primary system and/or thesecondary system managed by the adjacent radio resource managementsystem. However, how to save an overhead of the information interactionbetween the radio resource management systems, thus to improveefficiency of information interaction is a problem to be solvedurgently.

It should be noted here that the above description is just a descriptionmade on the background of the present disclosure, and is not necessarilyintended to constitute the prior art.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A brief summary of the present disclosure is given below, so as toprovide a basic understanding on some aspects of the present disclosure.It will be understood that the summary is not an exhaustive descriptionof the present disclosure. It is not intended to define a key orimportant part of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to limitthe scope of the present disclosure. It is intended to give someconcepts in a simplified manner, as a preface to the more detaileddescription described later.

In view of the above drawbacks of the prior art, one of the objects ofthe present disclosure is to provide a radio resource management systemand a radio resource management method, to overcome at least theproblems existing in the prior art.

According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, there is provideda radio resource management system including: a control device,configured to determine, based on geographical location information ofat least one secondary system and at least one primary system managed bythe radio resource management system, a radio resource that is availableto the at least one secondary system among licensed radio resources ofthe at least one primary system in the case that the primary system isnot interfered with, the control device including: a selection unit,configured to select at least one object that is liable to be interferedwith by the secondary system managed by another radio resourcemanagement system from the at least one primary system, from the atleast one secondary system, or from the at least one primary system andthe at least one secondary system based on the geographical locationinformation; and a communication device, configured to transmit thegeographical location information of the at least one object selected bythe selection unit to the another radio resource management system.

According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, there isprovided a radio resource management system including: a control device,configured to determine, based on geographical location information ofat least one secondary system and at least one primary system managed bythe radio resource management system, a radio resource that is availableto the at least one secondary system among licensed radio resources ofthe at least one primary system in the case that the primary system isnot interfered with, the control device including: an aggregation unit,configured to equate at least two secondary systems that aregeographically closed to each other among the secondary systems managedby the radio resource management system to one equivalent secondarysystem; and a communication device, configured to transmit radioresource usage information and the geographical location information ofthe equivalent secondary system to another radio resource managementsystem, so as to assist an interference coordination with the anotherradio resource management system.

According to still another embodiment of the present disclosure, thereis provided a radio resource management method including: a controlstep, for determining, based on geographical location information of atleast one secondary system and at least one primary system managed by aradio resource management system, a radio resource that is available tothe at least one secondary system among licensed radio resources of theat least one primary system in the case that the primary system is notinterfered with, the control step further including: selecting at leastone object that is liable to be interfered with by the secondary systemmanaged by another radio resource management system from the at leastone primary system, from the at least one secondary system, or from theat least one primary system and the at least one secondary system basedon the geographical location information; and a transmission step, fortransmitting the geographical location information of the selected atleast one object to the another radio resource management system.

According to still another embodiment of the present disclosure, thereis provided a radio resource management method including: a controlstep, for determining, based on geographical location information of atleast one secondary system and at least one primary system managed by aradio resource management system, a radio resource that is available tothe at least one secondary system among licensed radio resources of theat least one primary system in the case that the primary system is notinterfered with, the control step including: equating at least twosecondary systems that are geographically closed to each other among thesecondary systems managed by the radio resource management system to oneequivalent secondary system; and a transmission step, for transmittingradio resource usage information and the geographical locationinformation of the equivalent secondary system to another radio resourcemanagement system, so as to assist an interference coordination with theanother radio resource management system.

Additionally, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides acomputer program for implementing the above mentioned radio resourcemanagement method.

Furthermore, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides acorresponding computer-readable storage medium on which the computerprogram code for implementing the above mentioned radio resourcemanagement method is stored.

The radio resource management system and the radio resource managementmethod according to embodiments of the present disclosure can realize atleast one of the following beneficial effects: on the premise ofensuring communication quality of an object managed by the radioresource management system, substantially reducing an overhead of datainformation interaction.

Through the following detailed description of the best mode of thepresent disclosure in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, theseand other advantages of the present disclosure will become moreapparent.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present disclosure may be understood better with reference to thedescription provided in conjunction with the accompanying drawings,wherein the same or similar reference signs are used to represent thesame or similar components in all figures. The figures and the followingdetailed description are included in the specification and form a partof the specification, and used to further illustrate preferredembodiments of the present disclosure and explain principle and objectof the present disclosure by examples. Wherein:

FIG. 1 is an exemplary block diagram schematically illustrating a radioresource management system according to a first embodiment of thepresent disclosure;

FIG. 2 is another exemplary block diagram schematically illustrating theradio resource management system according to the first embodiment ofthe present disclosure;

FIG. 3 is still another exemplary block diagram schematicallyillustrating the radio resource management system according to the firstembodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 is still another exemplary block diagram schematicallyillustrating the radio resource management system according to the firstembodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 is an exemplary block diagram illustrating a radio resourcemanagement system according to a second embodiment of the presentdisclosure;

FIG. 6 is another exemplary block diagram illustrating a control device50 according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 is still another exemplary block diagram illustrating the controldevice 50 according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 8 is still another exemplary block diagram illustrating the controldevice 50 according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an interference between radio resourcemanagement systems and interference regions of respective secondarysystems;

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an information interaction between aradio resource management system and an adjacent radio resourcemanagement system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 11 is a flowchart schematically illustrating a radio resourcemanagement method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 12 is a flowchart schematically illustrating a radio resourcemanagement method according to another embodiment of the presentdisclosure;

FIG. 13 is a system diagram illustrating an information interactionbetween different radio resource management systems; and

FIG. 14 is a simplified structure diagram illustrating a possiblehardware configuration of an information processing apparatus forimplementing the radio resource management system and the radio resourcemanagement method according to the embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

Those skilled in the art should understand that elements in the figuresare illustrated for simplicity and clarity, and are not necessarilydrawn to scale. For example, size of some elements in the accompanyingdrawings may be enlarged with respect to other elements, so as tofacilitate improving understanding of the embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure are described below inconjunction with the accompanying drawings. For the sake of clarity andconciseness, not all features of actual implementations are described inthe specification. However, it is to be understood that duringdeveloping any of such actual implementations, numerousimplementation-specific decisions shall be made to achieve thedeveloper's specific goals, for example, compliance with system-relatedand business-related constraints which will vary from one implementationto another. Moreover, it is also to be understood that such adevelopment effort might be very complex and time-consuming, but willnevertheless be a routine task for those skilled in the art having thebenefit of this disclosure.

It is further noted that only device structures and/or process stepsclosely related to implementing the present disclosure are illustratedin the drawings while omitting other details less related to the presentdisclosure so as not to obscure the present disclosure due to thoseunnecessary details.

The present disclosure provides a radio resource management system and aradio resource management method for, on the premise of ensuringcommunication quality between the radio resource management system andan adjacent radio resource management system, effectively reducing aninformation interaction between these radio resource management systems.

System Environment

Firstly, a system environment in which a radio resource managementsystem of the present disclosure is located will be described briefly.The system environment on which design of the present disclosure isbased includes a primary system and at least one secondary system. Theprimary system is the license owner of the licensed spectrum band, forexample, to freely utilize a corresponding spectrum resource accordingto a service requirement thereof, and there may be a plurality of users(primary users) in the primary system. The secondary system may be asystem which is not the license owner of the licensed spectrum and onlyopportunistically uses the spectrum to perform a communication when theprimary system does not occupy the spectrum, and there may be aplurality of users (secondary users) in the secondary system. In oneexample, the primary system is a terrestrial television broadcastsystem, the primary user is a television terminal or a broadcastterminal, the secondary system is a WIFI system utilizing the UHF band(TV broadcast special band), and the secondary user is a user equipmentthat performs a WIFI technology-based communication by using the UHFband. Furthermore, the secondary system may also be an other system thatneeds to use a spectrum resource (such as the UHF band) to perform thecommunication, such as an intelligent meter reading system.Alternatively, the secondary system may also be a license owner of thelicensed spectrum, but lower priority than that of the primary systemwith respect to the spectrum usage. For example, when an operator isdeploying a new base station to provide a new service, an existing basestation and the provided service are regarded as the primary system andhas a priority of spectrum usage. As another example, the primary systemis a terrestrial television broadcast system, or is a first mobilecommunication system that is licensed to operate on a first band set andmaintained by a first mobile operator, and the secondary system is asecond mobile communication system that is licensed to operate on asecond band set and maintained by a second mobile operator. Note that,the secondary system opportunistically uses a resource in the unlicensedUHF band or the first band set in the case that the primary system isnot interfered with. Specifically, for example, the second communicationsystem aggregates carriers on the licensed band and the unlicensed bandbased on the carrier aggregation technique regulated in LTE-A.

Note that, the unlicensed spectrum resource that is available to thesecondary system may refer to at least one of a specific frequencyrange, utilization time in a corresponding frequency range, transmissionpower, and the like. Furthermore, the situation in which the primarysystem is not interfered with includes that the generated interferenceis within a tolerance limit range of the primary system and does notaffect a normal operation of the primary system.

It is known to the inventor that the most prevailing approach ofprotecting the primary system is to store coverage information of theprimary system in a database. The database also stores an interferencelimit that is tolerable to the primary system. The secondary systemshall firstly access the database before utilizing the spectrum of theprimary system in the same region and submits state information of thesecondary system, such as location information, a spectrum emissionmask, a transmission bandwidth and a carrier frequency. Then, thedatabase calculates an interference amount on the primary system by thesecondary system according to the state information of the secondarysystem, and calculates an expected spectrum resource available to thesecondary system under the current state according to the calculatedinterference amount on the primary system by the secondary system. Theradio resource management system of the present disclosure may beconfigured as such a database, or is independent of the database andperforms a communication with the database, so as to obtaincorresponding information.

Various embodiments will be described below with reference to thespecific content of the present disclosure.

First Embodiment

FIG. 1 is an exemplary block diagram schematically illustrating a radioresource management system according to a first embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 1, the radio resource management system 1 includes acontrol device 10, based on geographical location information of atleast one secondary system and at least one primary system managed bythe radio resource management system, a radio resource that is availableto at least one secondary system among licensed radio resources of atleast one primary system in the case that the primary system is notinterfered with, wherein the control device including a selection unit101 for selecting at least one object that is liable to be interferedwith by the secondary system managed by another radio resourcemanagement system from the at least one primary system, from the atleast one secondary system, or from the at least one primary system andthe at least one secondary system based on the geographical locationinformation; and a communication device 20 for transmitting thegeographical location information of the at least one object selected bythe selection unit to the another radio resource management system.

According to the present disclosure, the radio resource managementsystem 1 and the another radio resource management system that performsan information interaction with the radio resource management system 1may be a geographical location information database (GLDB) for managinginformation of communication system (including a primary system and asecondary system) within a specific range, or an advanced locationengine (AGE) that covers communication systems within the specificrange, or a network side apparatus such as an eNodeB or a basebandcloud. In addition, the radio resource management system 1 may be aseparate entity that is independent of the primary system and thesecondary system, or a combination of a plurality of entitiesdistributed on the respective primary system and secondary system.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the primary systemmanaged by the radio resource management system 1 may be a system havinga right to use a licensed spectrum, typically including a primary basestation and a primary user. Correspondingly, the secondary system may bea system having no right to use the licensed radio resource, typicallyincluding a secondary base station and a secondary user. According toanother embodiment of the present disclosure, the primary system and thesecondary system may both have the right to use the radio resource, butthe priority of spectrum usage of the primary system is higher than thatof the secondary system. For example, the primary system managed by theradio resource management system 1 may be a terrestrial televisionbroadcast system, and the secondary system may be a cognitive radiocommunication system. Other examples and explanations may refer to theabove described system environment section, and is not described indetail herein.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the secondarysystem may include the secondary base station and the secondary user, orinclude only the secondary user (for example, the case where thesecondary base station is not provided, and the secondary user isdirectly managed by the radio resource management system). Therefore, inthe description of the present disclosure, the secondary user is broadlyreferred to a secondary system so as to cover the above situation.

More specifically, an implementation of the secondary system accordingto the present disclosure may be a mobile terminal (such as a smartphone, a tablet personal computer (PC), a notebook PC, a portable gameterminal, a portable/dongle type mobile router and a digital imagingdevice), an in-vehicle terminal (such as a vehicle navigationapparatus), a terminal performing a machine-to-machine (M2M)communication (also referred to as a machine type communication (MTC)terminal), or a terminal performing a device-to-device (D2D)communication, for example. These terminals operable as the secondarysystem may be based on the WIFI communication technology, includingvarious wireless communication techniques such as the cellular mobilecommunication techniques in LTE, LTE-A, LTE-U (LTE-Unlicensed), an thelike, and the used spectrum resources include the unlicensed resource.

Additionally, the secondary system according to the embodiment of thepresent disclosure may be not only a secondary system entity that isbeing in operation currently, but also a secondary system that isexpected to operate, such as a secondary system that is in OFF statecurrently but may be switched on momentarily. For example, when thesecondary system is a mobile terminal, it may also be a place within amanagement range of the radio resource management system, to which aprobability that the secondary system moves to operate is high.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the control device10 may determine an interference situation of the primary system by thesecondary system managed by the radio resource management system 1 andan interference situation of the primary system by the secondary systemmanaged by an adjacent radio resource management system, based on thegeographical location information of the at least one secondary systemand the at least one primary system managed by the radio resourcemanagement system, so as to determine the radio resource that isavailable to the at least one secondary system among the licensed radioresources of the at least one primary system.

Typically, it is necessary to ensure that usage of the unlicensed radioresource by the secondary system does not interfere with the primarysystem, and the radio resource management system has a responsibility toprotect the primary system registered in the management system frombeing interfered with by the secondary system managed by itself whenperforming a resource allocation for the secondary system managed byitself. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the radio resourcemanagement system further considers an interference to the registeredprimary system by the secondary system managed by other radio resourcemanagement system, so as to better ensure a normal operation of theprimary system.

Correspondingly, interaction of related information of the primarysystems protected by the respective radio resource management systemsneed to be performed therebetween. According to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure, the selection unit 101 may select at least oneprimary system or primary user that is liable to be interfered with bythe secondary system managed by the another radio resource managementsystem (in other words, the primary system or primary user most in needof protection) from the at least one primary system managed by the radioresource management system 1 based on the geographical locationinformation, and transmit the geographical location information of theat least one primary system or primary user selected by the selectionunit 101 to the another radio resource management system via thecommunication device 20.

According to the embodiment, the radio resource management systempurposefully selects some primary systems and performs the informationinteraction of these primary systems with the other radio resourcemanagement system. In comparison with the case of blindly performing aninteraction of all unnecessary information of the primary system withthe other radio resource management system, the radio resourcemanagement system in the embodiment of the present disclosure caneffectively reduce a signaling overhead between systems, and improve thesystem safety at the same time. Unlike the primary system, the secondarysystem opportunistically uses the unlicensed radio resource, the usageof the unlicensed radio resource between the secondary systems may bebased on collision, or may be coordinated according to certain rules.When these secondary systems are managed by the same radio resourcemanagement system, this radio resource management system can undertake acorresponding coordination task, thereby to improve the efficiency ofusing the unlicensed resource. When these secondary systems are managedby different radio resource management systems, only performing aninternal coordination of the respective radio resource managementsystems can not avoid a collision between the secondary systems managedby two different management systems from occurring, and therefore aninteraction of information on the respective secondary systems need tobe performed between the respective radio resource management systems.

Additionally, not only the primary system, but also some of thesecondary systems managed by the radio resource management system 1require, for example, a QoS guarantee, yet other secondary systems donot require the QoS guarantee. Specifically, for example, a currentservice of the some secondary systems is a real time speechcommunication or other important service and requires the QoS guarantee,or a user of the some secondary systems has paid additional fees for theQoS guarantee. Accordingly, there is a need to consider impact on thesecondary system requiring the QoS guarantee by other secondary system(including the secondary system managed by the radio resource managementsystem (that is, the secondary system that is managed by the same radioresource management system) and the secondary system managed by theadjacent radio resource management system).

In this case, based on the geographical location information, theselection unit 101 may select the primary system and the secondarysystem that are liable to be interfered with by the secondary systemmanaged by the another radio resource management system or needprotection, as the at least one object that is liable to be interferedwith by the secondary system managed by the another radio resourcemanagement system, among the primary system and the secondary systemmanaged by the radio resource management system 1. According to theembodiment, the radio resource management system purposefully selectssome primary systems and performs the information interaction of theseprimary systems with the other radio resource management system. Incomparison with the case of blindly performing an interaction of allunnecessary information of the primary system with the other radioresource management system, the radio resource management system in theembodiment of the present disclosure can effectively reduce a signalingoverhead between systems, and improve the system safety at the sametime.

Therefore, the object that is liable to be interfered with by thesecondary system managed by the another radio resource management systemmay be the primary system and the secondary system managed by the radioresource management system 1.

Although there has been described above that the selection unit 101select the at least one object that is liable to be interfered with bythe secondary system managed by the another radio resource managementsystem from the at least one primary system or a combination of the atleast one primary system and the at least one secondary system, thepresent disclosure is not limited thereto. According to an embodiment ofthe present disclosure, the radio resource management system 1 may alsobe configured to perform an information interaction of all registeredprimary systems with the another radio resource management system, andwith respect to the secondary system, only select information of thesecondary system that is liable to be interfered for interaction. Inthis case, the selection unit 101 may be configured to select at leastone secondary system that is liable to be interfered with by thesecondary system managed by the another radio resource management systemfrom the secondary system managed by the radio resource managementsystem 1, and the geographical location information of the at least onesecondary system selected and all the primary systems is transmitted tothe another radio resource management system by the communication device20.

According to the present disclosure, the geographical locationinformation of the at least one primary system and the at least onesecondary system includes information on longitude and latitude. Inaddition, it may include information on antenna height. In someexamples, the management range may be divided into a plurality ofregions according to certain rules, and the geographical locationinformation may be indicated by, for example, a region number.

FIG. 2 is another exemplary block diagram schematically illustrating theradio resource management system according to the first embodiment ofthe present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 2, in addition to the control device 10 and thecommunication device 20 as those included in the radio resourcemanagement system 1 in FIG. 1, the radio resource management system 2further includes a storage device 30 for storing the geographicallocation information of the at least one secondary system and the atleast one primary system, wherein the control device 10 is furtherconfigured to access the storage device 30 to obtain the geographicallocation information of the at least one secondary system and the atleast one primary system.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the storage device30 is used for storing the geographical location information of all theprimary systems and secondary systems registered in the radio resourcemanagement system 2 (for example, coordinates of the primary system andthe secondary system, such as the information on longitude and latitudeas well as antenna height of the primary system and the secondarysystem), such that the control device 10 can obtain the geographicallocation information of the primary system and the secondary systemmanaged by the radio resource management system 2 by accessing thestorage device 30.

Additionally, the storage device 30 according to the embodiment of thepresent disclosure stores transmission information of all the secondarysystems managed by the radio resource management system 2, such as thetransmission power and a channel identifier ID.

The selection unit 101 may determine a distance between the at least oneprimary system, the at least one secondary system or the at least oneprimary system and the at least one secondary system and a communicationsystem region that is managed by the another radio resource managementsystem based on the geographical location information of the at leastone secondary system and the at least one primary system managed by theradio resource management system, and select at least one objectaccording to the distance as the at least one object that is liable tobe interfered with by the secondary system managed by the another radioresource management system. According to a preferred embodiment of thepresent disclosure, the selection unit 101 may be configured to select aprimary system that is closest to the communication system regionmanaged by the another radio resource management system and/or asecondary system that is closest to the communication system regionmanaged by the another radio resource management system and has thehighest priority to use the unlicensed spectrum from the at least oneprimary system, from the at least one secondary system or from the atleast one primary system and the at least one secondary system as the atleast one object that is liable to be interfered with by the secondarysystem managed by the another radio resource management system.

For example, the selection unit 101 selects a primary system PU₀ and/ora secondary system SU₀ that is closest to the communication systemregion managed by the another radio resource management system from theat least one primary system and/or the at least one secondary systemmanaged by the radio resource management system as the object that isliable to be interfered with by the secondary system managed by theanother radio resource management system, and the communication device20 is configured to transmit geographical location information L₀ (forexample, a coordinate (x₀, y₀)) of the primary system PU₀ and/or thesecondary system SU₀ to the another radio resource management system.

According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, the selectionunit 101 is further configured to select at least one object as the atleast one object that is liable to be interfered with by the secondarysystem managed by the another radio resource management system based on,in addition to the geographical location information, receptionperformance information of the at least one primary system and the atleast one secondary system. The reception performance informationincludes, for example, reception power. The communication device 20 isconfigured to transmit the reception performance information of theselected at least one object to the another radio resource managementsystem.

The reception performance information includes information fordescribing situation of a receiver itself (such as a sensitivity and asignal-to-interference and noise ratio requirement) and/or actualreception situation (such as actual reception power and an actualsignal-to-interference and noise ratio). The reception power includes acurrent actual reception power, a historical average value of thereception power, the historical minimum value of the reception power, ora historical value of the reception power with a high probability.

More specifically, the selection unit 101 may select, for example, aprimary system PU₁ and/or a secondary system SU₁ of a current receptionsignal of which the signal-to-interference and noise ratio is minimumand/or the signal-to-interference and noise ratio requirement is thehighest and/or the sensitivity is the worst as the at least one objectthat is liable to be interfered with by the secondary system managed bythe another radio resource management system. In this case, thecommunication device 20 is configured to transmit reception power P₁ ofthe selected at least one object PU₁ and/or SU₁ to the another radioresource management system.

The communication device 20 may transmit the geographical locationinformation L₀ of the primary system PU₀ and/or the secondary system SU₀that is selected by the selection unit 101 to the another radio resourcemanagement system along with the reception power P₁ of the primarysystem PU₁ and/or the secondary system SU₁.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the at least oneobject selected by the selection unit 101 based on the geographicallocation information of the primary system and the secondary system andthe at least one object selected based on the reception performance ofthe primary system and the secondary system may be the at least oneobject selected based on different criterions, and may be the sameobject or different objects.

Further, in a specific example of the present disclosure, the selectionunit 101 may firstly select a plurality of objects based on thegeographical location information of the primary system and thesecondary system, then select the at least one object from the pluralityof objects according to the reception performance, and transmit thegeographical location information and the reception performanceinformation of the at least one object to the another radio resourcemanagement system. It will be understood by those skilled in the artthat, the above mentioned order may also be reversed, that is, theselection according to the reception performance may be performedfirstly, and then the selection according to the geographical locationmay be further performed.

According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, the selectionunit 101 is further configured to select the at least one object basedon priority information of the at least one secondary system. In thiscase, the communication unit 20 is further configured to transmit thepriority information of the selected at least one object to the anotherradio resource management system. More specifically, the selection unit101 selects a secondary system with a high priority as the object thatis liable to be interfered with by the another radio resource managementsystem based on the priority of the secondary system managed by theradio resource management system 1, such that the communication unit 20transmits the priority information of the selected secondary system withthe high priority to the another radio resource management system.

For example, after the geographical location information and thereception power information of the at least one object that is liable tobe interfered with by the secondary system managed by the another radioresource management system is transmitted to the another radio resourcemanagement system by the communication unit 20, the another radioresource management system can determine a secondary system that isliable to interfere with the at least one object among the secondarysystem managed by the another radio resource management system accordingto related information of the at least one object that is liable to beinterfered with, and transmit information of the secondary system to theradio resource management systems 1, 2.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the communicationunit 20 is further configured to receive information of the secondarysystem managed by the another radio resource management system that isliable to interfere with the at least one object from the another radioresource management system, such that the present radio resourcemanagement systems 1, 2 determines interference situation of the atleast one object that is managed by itself based on the receivedinformation.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, for example, theanother radio resource management system can determine an interferencepower threshold of the at least one object based on the reception powerinformation of the at least one object received from the radio resourcemanagement systems 1, 2. Specifically, for example, the at least oneobject is a primary system, and the communication quality of the primarysystem requires that the signal-to-interference and noise ratiorequirement of a TV terminal, for example, is common. The another radioresource management system determines the maximum reception power of aninterference signal that the object can tolerate, that is, theinterference power threshold, according to the knownsignal-to-interference and noise ratio requirement of the at least oneobject and the reception power of the object.

In other examples, the radio resource management systems 1, 2 mayfurther send the signal-to-interference and noise ratio requirement ofthe at least one object as a part of the reception performanceinformation to the another radio resource management system, so as tocalculate the interference power threshold. Further, according to thegeographical location information of the object (referred to as anobject being interfered with below), and based on the interference powerthreshold and the location information of the respective secondarysystems (referred to interfering secondary systems below) managed by theanother radio resource management system, the interference on the atleast one object by the respective secondary systems can be determined,such that the secondary system that is liable interfere with the atleast one object can be determined among the respective secondarysystems managed by the another radio resource management system, andinformation of the secondary system is transmitted to the radio resourcemanagement systems 1, 2. For example, according to the geographicallocation of the interfering secondary system, the another radio resourcemanagement system can determine path loss situation when the interferingsecondary system transmits a signal, and if a distance from theinterfering secondary system to the object being interfered with is longenough such that transmission signal attenuate greatly, and interferencepower generated by the interfering secondary system that can be receivedby the object being interfered with does not exceed the interferencepower threshold, it can be determined that the interfering secondarysystem does not generate interference to the object.

Additionally, the another radio resource management system can determinethe secondary system that is liable to interfere with the object beinginterfered with among the secondary system managed by the another radioresource management system according to the interference power thresholdof at least one object being interfered with by using any known manner.In particular, the another radio resource management system candetermine the secondary system that is liable to interfere with the atleast one object by using the manner as described according to thesecond embodiment of the present disclosure (specifically, referring tothe description of the radio resource management system according to thesecond embodiment of the present disclosure below).

FIG. 3 is still another exemplary block diagram schematicallyillustrating the radio resource management system according to the firstembodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 3, in addition to the control device 10 and thecommunication device 20 as those included in the radio resourcemanagement system 1 in FIG. 1, the radio resource management system 3further includes an aggregation interference calculation device 40 forcalculating, with respect to each object selected by the selection unit,an aggregation interference on the object generated by a communicationsystem including a secondary system that is managed by another radioresource management system according to information of the secondarysystem managed by the another radio resource management system that isreceived by the communication unit.

According to the present disclosure, the aggregation interferencecalculation device 40 can calculate the aggregation interference on eachof at least one object, such as aggregation interference power,according to information of the secondary system that is liable tointerfere with the at least one object selected by the selection unitthat is received from the another radio resource management system. Theaggregation interference calculation device may calculate theaggregation interference of each object by using any well known methodin the prior art. According to an embodiment of the present disclosure,the aggregation interference may be calculated by using, for example, areception power superposition method and a spatial interpolation method.These two aggregation interference calculation methods will be describedbriefly blow respectively.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the aggregationinterference calculation device 40 may calculate the aggregationinterference on each object with the following equation (1) according tothe reception power superposition method.

$\begin{matrix}{I_{PU} = {{\sum\limits_{1}^{n}P_{r}} = {\sum\limits_{1}^{n}{P_{SU}{Cd}^{- \alpha}}}}} & (1)\end{matrix}$

wherein,

${C = \frac{G_{t}G_{r}\lambda^{2}}{\left( {4\pi} \right)^{\alpha}}},$

P_(SU) is transmission power of an interfering secondary system, Gt andGr are a transmission antenna gain and a reception antenna gainrespectively, d is a propagation distance between the secondary systemmanaged by the another radio resource management system that is liableto interfere with the at least one object managed by the radio resourcemanagement system and the at least one object in the radio resourcemanagement system, α is a path loss index, n is a number of thesecondary systems that are likely to generate an interference on the atleast one object among the secondary systems managed by the anotherradio resource management system.

According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, theaggregation interference calculation device 40 may calculate theaggregation interference of each object by the spatial interpolationmethod. A principle of the spatial interpolation method is to perform aninterpolation by calculating a weighted average of measured values foreach point in the vicinity of an unknown point. According to theprinciple of spatial autocorrelation, the more spatially close to eachother, the more similar to each other are articles or phenomena, andthus a weight value obtained from the closest point is the greatest.

Specifically, the aggregation interference calculation device 40 maycalculate the aggregation interference power with respect to each objectby the following equation (2).

$\begin{matrix}{{P\left( {x,y} \right)} = \frac{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}{d_{i}^{- \alpha}P_{i}}}{\sum\limits_{i - 1}^{N}d_{i}^{- \alpha}}} & (2)\end{matrix}$

wherein, P_(i) is a power value measured at a point (x_(i), y_(i)),d_(i) is a distance between a point (x, y) to be predicted and areference point (x_(i), y_(i)), N is a number of selected referencepoints, and a is the path loss index which shall be determined accordingto particular propagation situation of radio communication wave and istypically determined as 2 in the free space.

When the aggregation interference on each object generated by thesecondary system managed by the another radio resource management systemis calculated by the aggregation interference calculation device withrespect to each object, the radio resource management system candetermine a corresponding adjustment scheme according to a relationshipbetween an aggregation interference value and an interference thresholdvalue.

Additionally, although not shown in the figure, the radio resourcemanagement system 3 according to the present disclosure may also includethe storage device 30 as shown in FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is still another exemplary block diagram schematicallyillustrating the radio resource management system according to the firstembodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 4, in addition to the control device 10 including theselection unit 101, the communication device 20 and the aggregationinterference calculation device 40 as those included in the radioresource management system 3 in FIG. 3, the control device 10 of theradio resource management system 4 according to the embodiment of thepresent disclosure further includes an adjustment unit 102 fordetermining an adjustment to an operational parameter of a secondarysystem managed by another radio resource management system according toan aggregation interference calculated by the aggregation interferencecalculation device with respect to each object and an interference powerthreshold of the object, and generating adjustment information, theoperational parameter including at least one of the maximum transmissionpower and a working channel.

According to the present disclosure, the adjustment unit 102 comparesthe aggregation interference calculated with respect to each object bythe aggregation interference calculation device 40 with the interferencepower threshold of the object, and if the calculated aggregationinterference exceeds the interference power threshold, determines toperform a corresponding adjustment to the operational parameter of thesecondary system that is liable to interfere with the object managed bythe another radio resource management system for example, to control themaximum transmission power of the secondary system that is liable togenerate the interference and the working channel.

More specifically, for example, the corresponding adjustment may beperformed to the secondary system that is liable to generate theinterference by using the following specific adjustment methods:

(1) reducing transmission power of all the secondary systems that areliable to interfere with the at least one object managed by the anotherradio resource management system by a first predetermined power value;

(2) reducing transmission power of the first predetermined number of thesecondary systems that contribute most to the aggregation interferencepower of the at least one object managed by the another radio resourcemanagement system by a second predetermined power value, wherein thesecond predetermined power value may be equal to the first predeterminedpower value or not;

(3) switching one or several secondary systems managed by the anotherradio resource management system to an other channel (for example, anidle channel); and

(4) interrupting transmission of one or several secondary systemsmanaged by the another radio resource management system.

Additionally, the adjustment to the corresponding secondary system maybe implemented by combining the above mentioned method (1) or (2) withmethod (3) or (4).

The adjustment unit 102 can determine an adjustment manner for theoperational parameter of the secondary system managed by the anotherradio resource management system based on the comparison result betweenthe aggregation interference calculated with respect to each object andthe interference power threshold of the object, and generatecorresponding adjustment information. The adjustment information is sentto the another radio resource management system by the communicationdevice 20, so as to inform the corresponding secondary system to performa corresponding adjustment.

Although only the case where the secondary system managed by the anotherradio resource management system determines the aggregation interferenceon the at least one object that is liable to be interfered with anddetermines the corresponding adjustment scheme is considered in abovedescription, the present disclosure is not limited thereto. It will beunderstood by those skilled in the art that, the aggregationinterference on the at least one object that is liable to be interferedwith by the secondary system managed by the another radio resourcemanagement system and other secondary systems managed by the radioresource management systems 1 to 4 may also be considered incombination, and it is determined to adjust the corresponding adjustmentscheme according to the aggregation interference correspondingly, forexample, to adjust usage of radio resource of the respective secondarysystems that generate the aggregation interference (in particular, asecondary system having lower priority than the object that is liable tobe interfered with) correspondingly.

In comparison with the prior art, the radio resource management systemaccording to the embodiment of the present disclosure only needs totransmit to the another radio resource management system the relatedinformation of the primary system and/or the secondary system that isliable to be interfered with by the secondary system managed by theanother radio resource management system, without the informationinteraction of all the primary systems and the secondary systems withthe another radio resource management system, and therefore theinformation interaction overhead is greatly saved.

Second Embodiment

A configuration of a radio resource management system on an interferingside will be described below.

FIG. 5 is an exemplary block diagram illustrating a radio resourcemanagement system according to a second embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

As shown in FIG. 5, the radio resource management system 5 includes acontrol device 50 for determining, based on geographical locationinformation of at least one secondary system and at least one primarysystem managed by the radio resource management system, a radio resourcethat is available to the at least one secondary system among licensedradio resources of the at least one primary system in the case that theprimary system is not interfered with, wherein the control deviceincluding an aggregation unit 501 for equating at least two secondarysystems that are geographically closed to each other among the secondarysystems managed by the radio resource management system to oneequivalent secondary system, and a communication device 60 fortransmitting radio resource usage information and the geographicallocation information of the equivalent secondary system to another radioresource management system, so as to assist an interference coordinationwith the another radio resource management system.

As in the first embodiment, the primary system managed by the radioresource management system according to the second embodiment of thepresent disclosure may be a terrestrial television broadcast system, andthe secondary system may be a cognitive radio communication system.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the radio resourceusage information of the equivalent secondary system includestransmission power of the equivalent secondary system.

The another radio resource management system according to the embodimentof the present disclosure may be any one of the radio resourcemanagement systems 1 to 4 according to the first embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the communicationdevice 60 is further configured to receive information of at least oneobject to be protected among objects managed by the another radioresource management system from the another radio resource managementsystem, wherein the information of the at least one object includes thegeographical location information of the at least one object andreception power of the at least one object. For example, the at leastone object to be protected may be at least one object (such as theprimary system and the secondary system) that is liable to be interferedwith by the secondary system managed by the radio resource managementsystem 1 selected by the another radio resource management systemaccording to the above first embodiment. In a simple example, the atleast one object to be protected is all the primary systems and/or allthe secondary systems managed by the another radio resource managementsystem. The communication device 60 may be configured to receiveinformation of the at least one object to be protected, such as thegeographical location information and the reception power, from theanother radio resource management system.

FIG. 6 is an exemplary block diagram illustrating the control device 50according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 6, in addition to the aggregation unit 501 as thatincluded in the control device 50 of the radio resource managementsystem 5 in FIG. 5, the control device 50 of the radio resourcemanagement system 5 according to the embodiment of the presentdisclosure further includes a calculation unit 502 for determining, withrespect to each of the at least one object, an interference powerthreshold of the object according to the reception power of the objectreceived by the communication device and a signal-to-interference andnoise ratio requirement, and an interference region determination unit503 for determining, with respect to each of the at least one object, aninterference region of the respective secondary systems with respect tothe object according to location of each secondary system among thesecondary systems managed by the radio resource management system andthe interference power threshold of the object.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the calculationunit 502 of the control device 50 may calculate the interference powerthreshold of each object to be protected according to the receptionpower P of at least one object to be protected received from the anotherradio resource management system by the communication device 20. Thecalculation unit 502 may calculate the interference power threshold ofthe object to be protected according to the reception power of theobject to be protected by using any well known method in the art.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the interferencepower threshold of the object to be protected may be calculatedaccording to the signal-to-interference and noise ratio requirement forthe object to be protected. Specifically, each object to be protectedneeds to satisfy a requirement for the minimum signal-to-interferenceand noise ratio (α), as shown in equation (3):

$\begin{matrix}{{SINR} = {\frac{P_{r}}{I + \sigma^{2}} \geq \alpha}} & (3)\end{matrix}$

Equation (4) may be derived from the above equation:

I≦P _(r)/α−σ²  (4)

wherein, I is the signal interference power of the interference on theobject to be protected, σ² is noise power (it is assume that the noisepower is relatively low compared with the interference power and can beomitted), α is the requirement for the minimum signal-to-interferenceand noise ratio when the primary system or the secondary system (thatis, the object to be protected) is normally operating and is typically afixed value, and P_(r) is the reception power of the primary system orthe secondary system.

P₁ is the minimum value of the reception power of the at least oneobject to be protected, which may be, for example, the reception powerof the object with the minimum signal-to-interference and noise ratio asdescribed in the first embodiment of the present disclosure. Therefore,it is required that:

I≦p ₁ /α≦P _(r)/α  (5)

Thus, with respect to the at least one object, the interference powerthreshold (I₀) thereof can be determined as:

I ₀ =p ₁/α  (6)

wherein, I₀ may be taken as the interference power threshold for all theobjects to be protected so as to simplify the calculation.

The interference region determination unit 503 may determine theinterference region of the respective secondary systems with respect toeach of the at least one object based on the interference powerthreshold of the at least one object and the location of each secondarysystem among the secondary systems managed by the radio resourcemanagement system 6.

For example, a radius of the interference region may be expressed by amathematical equation. For example, the interference region may berepresented as a circle with the secondary system as the center:

(x−x _(i))²+(y−y _(i))² ≦r ₁ ²  (7)

wherein, r₁ is the maximum value of inequation (7). For example, it canbe obtained according to the following equation (8),

$\begin{matrix}{r_{1} = \sqrt[\alpha]{\frac{K}{I_{0}}}} & (8)\end{matrix}$

wherein, K is a constant that is related to transmission power P_(t), anantenna gain, and the like.

According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, theinterference region of the secondary system may also be determined froma path loss of the secondary system, such as

P _(t)−PL>I ₀  (9)

wherein, PL is the path loss of the secondary system and may bedetermined from the following equation (10). P_(t) is the transmissionpower of the secondary system managed by the radio resource managementsystem.

PL=A*log₁₀(d)+B*log₁₀(f)+C  (10)

wherein, the equation (10) may be calculated by selecting a suitablechannel model according to specific location environment in which thesecondary system is located, or may be obtained by looking up a knownpath loss table.

If there is a receiver within a range of the interference regiondetermined according to the above method, the reception power of thereceiver with respect to the signal transmitted by the interferingsecondary system is greater than the interference power threshold.Therefore, if the location of the object to be protected is within theinterference region, the radio resource management system can determinethat the above interfering secondary system may generate an interferenceto the object to be protected.

Although the case where the interference power threshold with respect tothe at least one object is calculated by the calculation unit in thecontrol device 50 of the radio resource management system 6 has beendescribed above, the present disclosure is not limited thereto. Theinterference power threshold of the at least one object may also becalculated by the another radio resource management system according tothe reception power of at least one object managed by the another radioresource management system, and the calculated interference powerthreshold may be received from the another radio resource managementsystem by the communication device 60.

The aggregation unit 501 may be configured to equate, with respect toeach of the at least one object, at least two secondary systems of whichcoverage ranges of the interference regions are overlapped among therespective secondary systems to one equivalent secondary systemaccording to the interference regions of the respective secondarysystems with respect to the object.

In the case that the aggregation unit 501 equates the at least twosecondary systems of which the coverage ranges of the interferenceregions are overlapped to the one equivalent secondary system, theinterference region determination unit 503 is further configured toequate the location of the secondary system which is closest to acommunication system region managed by the another radio resourcemanagement system among the at least two secondary systems having beenequated to the one equivalent secondary system to the location of theequivalent secondary system, and add the transmission power of the atleast two secondary systems together to equate to the transmission powerof the equivalent secondary system, so as to determine the interferenceregion of the equivalent secondary system.

For example, the transmission power of the at least two secondarysystems having been equated to the one equivalent secondary system canbe added together by multiplying an average power of the at least twosecondary systems by a number of the secondary systems (that is,performing a simple superposition), by multiplying the maximum poweramong the at least two secondary systems by the number of the secondarysystems, by weighting power of the at least two secondary systems, inwhich a distance from the secondary system to the at least one objectmay be taken as a weight for the weighting, or the like.

More specifically, for example,

$\sqrt[\alpha]{n_{1}}r_{1}$

may be equated to the radius of the interference region of theequivalent secondary system, and n₁×P_(t) may be equated to thetransmission power of the equivalent secondary system, such that theinterference region of the equivalent secondary system is determined.Wherein, n₁ is equated to the number of the secondary systems of the oneequivalent secondary system, r₁ is equated to the radius of theinterference region of the secondary system that is closest to thecommunication system region managed by the another radio resourcemanagement system among the at least two secondary systems equated tothe one equivalent secondary system, a is equated to the path loss indexof the secondary system that is closest to the communication systemregion managed by the another radio resource management system among theat least two secondary systems equated to the one equivalent secondarysystem, and Pt is equated to the maximum transmission power or theaverage transmission power of the at least two secondary systems equatedto the one equivalent secondary system.

For example, in the case that at least two secondary systems of whichthe coverage ranges of the interference regions are overlapped areequated to one equivalent secondary system, the radius of theinterference region of the secondary system that is closest to thecommunication system region managed by the another radio resourcemanagement system among the at least two secondary systems may beincreased by

$\sqrt[a]{n_{1}}r_{1}$

times. In the case that three secondary systems are equated to oneequivalent secondary system, the radius of the interference region ofthe secondary system that is closest to the communication system regionmanaged by the another radio resource management system among the threesecondary systems is increased by

$\sqrt[a]{3}$

times, wherein the minimum value of α is 2.

The information interaction of all the secondary systems managed by theradio resource management system can be avoid by virtualizing aplurality of secondary systems of which the coverage ranges of theinterference regions are overlapped to one equivalent secondary system,and transmitting the related information of the equivalent secondarysystem to the another radio resource management system by thecommunication device 60, and there is just a need for the informationinteraction of the equivalent secondary systems, such that theinformation interaction overhead between the radio resource managementsystems is reduced.

FIG. 7 is another exemplary block diagram illustrating the controldevice 50 according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 7, in addition to the aggregation unit 501, thecalculation unit 502 and the interference region determination unit 503as those included in the control device 50 of the radio resourcemanagement system 6 in FIG. 6, the control device 50 further includes ajudgment unit 504 for judging whether the interference region of therespective secondary systems including all the equivalent secondarysystems covers the at least one object or not.

Specifically, according to the geographical location information of theat least one object received by the communication device from theanother radio resource management system, the judgment unit 504 may beconfigured to judge whether the object which is closest to thecommunication system region managed by the radio resource managementsystem among communication systems managed by the another radio resourcemanagement system is within the interference region of the respectivesecondary systems including the equivalent secondary system or not.

According to the present disclosure, the judgment unit 504 is configuredto determine that the secondary system is liable to generateinterference on the at least one object in case of judging that theinterference region covers the at least one object, such that theinformation of the secondary system including the equivalent secondarysystem corresponding to the interference region is transmitted to theanother radio resource management system by the communication device 60.If the judgment unit 504 judges that the interference region does notcover the at least one object, it is determined that the secondarysystem including the equivalent secondary system corresponding to theinterference region is not liable to generate interference on the atleast one object, and in this case, the communication device 60 needsnot to transmit the information of the secondary system including theequivalent secondary system corresponding to the interference region tothe another radio resource management system.

FIG. 8 is still another exemplary block diagram illustrating the controldevice 50 according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 8, in addition to the aggregation unit 501, thecalculation unit 502, the interference region determination unit 503 andthe judgment unit 504 as those included in the control device 50 in FIG.7, the control device 50 further includes an adjustment unit 505 forperforming an adjustment to usage of radio resource by the secondarysystem managed by the radio resource management system according toadjustment information received by the another radio resource managementsystem.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the communicationunit 60 is further configured to receive the adjustment information thatis determined based on the aggregation interference (for example, theaggregation interference may be calculated from the information of thesecondary system that is liable to generate interference on at least oneobject to be interfered with, which is transmitted by the radio resourcemanagement systems 5, 6) of the at least one object to be interferedwith and the interference threshold from the another radio resourcemanagement system, such that the adjustment unit 505 performs theadjustment to the usage of radio resource of the corresponding secondarysystem according to the received adjustment information.

For example, when the adjustment information is to reduce thetransmission power of all the secondary systems by a first predeterminedpower value, the adjustment unit 505 may reduce the transmission powerof all the secondary systems managed by the radio resource managementsystem 5 by the first predetermined power value.

Through the adjustment to the usage of radio resource of the respectivesecondary systems by the adjustment unit 505 according to the adjustmentinformation received from the another radio resource management system,it is possible to maintain the interference of the secondary systemsmanaged by the radio resource management system on the at least oneobject to be protected managed by the another radio resource managementsystem to be within a tolerable range.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an interference between radio resourcemanagement systems and interference regions of respective secondarysystems.

SS1 indicates regions of the primary system and the secondary systemmanaged by the radio resource management system on an interfering side(such as the radio resource management system 5 according to the secondembodiment of the present disclosure), SS2 indicates regions of theprimary system and the secondary system (including the object to beprotected) managed by the radio resource management system on a sidebeing interfered with (such as the radio resource management systems 1to 4 according to the first embodiment of the present disclosure), andthe shaded region in FIG. 9 indicates an interference region of acorresponding secondary system with respect to at least one objectmanaged by an adjacent radio resource management system.

As shown in FIG. 9, the communication device 60 of the radio resourcemanagement system 5 can receive the geographical location information ofthe object to be protected from the adjacent radio resource managementsystem thereof (in the example shown in FIG. 9, for example, the primarysystem PU₁), and the interference region determination unit 503 of thecontrol device 50 can determine an interference range of the respectivesecondary systems to the primary system PU₁ according to thegeographical location information of the object to be protected and theinterference threshold, as shown in the shaded region in FIG. 7. Sincethe interference range of the secondary system SU₃ covers the primarysystem PU₁ that is the object to be protected, the communication device60 can transmit the information of the secondary system SU₃ to the radioresource management system on the side being interfered with, andreceive the adjustment information indicating that the radio resourcemanagement system on the side being interfered with determines toperform an adjustment to the usage of radio resource of the secondarysystem SU₃ according to the aggregation interference of the primarysystem PU₁ and the interference threshold, such that the adjustment unit505 of the control device 50 performs the adjustment to the usage ofradio resource of the secondary system SU₃ according to the receivedadjustment information.

Through further selection by the radio resource management systems 5 to8, there is only a need for an information interaction of the secondarysystem that may generate a harmful interference (including theequivalent secondary system) between the radio resource managementsystems 5 to 8 and the another radio resource management system, suchthat the information interaction overhead between the radio resourcemanagement systems is further reduced.

It shall be understood by those skilled in the art that, the aggregationunit 501 may also not be disposed in the radio resource managementsystem of the present embodiment, and the equivalent secondary system isnot determined, the radio resource management system operates justaccording to the above described flow, such as, receives the informationof the object to be protected, determines the interference powerthreshold of the object to be protected, determines the interferenceregion, and determines the information of the secondary system that willgenerate an interference on the another radio resource managementsystem, and performs the corresponding interaction with the anotherradio resource management system. Although the embodiments of thepresent disclosure have been described above with respect to the radioresource management system on the interfering side and the radioresource management system on the side being interfered withrespectively, it will be understood by those skill in the art that thesecondary system managed by the radio resource management system on theside being interfered with may also generate an interference on theprimary system and secondary system of the adjacent radio resourcemanagement system thereof, and therefore the radio resource managementsystem on the side being interfered with may also be the radio resourcemanagement system on the interfering side at the same time. In otherwords, the control device in the radio resource management systemsaccording to the embodiment of the present disclosure described withreference to FIGS. 1 to 4 may also have the function of the controldevice described with reference to FIGS. 5 to 8, that is, the controldevice 10 described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4 may also include theaggregation unit 501, the calculation unit 502 and the interferenceregion determination unit 503 described with reference to FIGS. 5 to 8.Vice versa, the control device 50 described with reference to FIGS. 5 to8 may also include the selection unit 101 and the adjustment unit 102described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an information interaction between aradio resource management system and an adjacent radio resourcemanagement system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 10, an first radio resource management system 1001transmits geographical location information of at least one objectselected based on location information of a primary system and asecondary system managed by itself to an adjacent second radio resourcemanagement system 1002, the second radio resource management system 1002determines an interference range on the at least one object by thesecondary system managed by itself according to an interferencethreshold value of the at least one object and transmits relatedinformation of the secondary system (including the equivalent secondarysystem, which is an equivalent secondary system that can virtualizeseveral secondary systems to one secondary system because theinterference ranges are overlapped) of which the interference rangecovers the at least one object to the first radio resource managementsystem 1001 based on the interference ranges of the respective secondarysystems, and the first radio resource management system 1001 cancalculate an aggregation interference on the at least one object basedon the received related information of the secondary system that isliable to interfere with the at least one object and determine anadjustment to usage of radio resource of the respective secondarysystems managed by the second radio resource management system 1002based on the aggregation interference on the at least one object and theinterference threshold value thereof, so as to send adjustmentinformation to the second radio resource management system 1002 andadjust the usage of radio resource by a corresponding secondary system.

According to the present disclosure, various configurations of the aboverespective systems, devices, units according to the embodiment of thepresent disclosure can be implemented by a software design, a hardwarecombination or a combination of hardware and software.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, there is alsoprovided a radio resource management method for a radio resourcemanagement system on a side being interfered with. An exemplary processof the radio resource management method for the radio resourcemanagement system on the side being interfered with will be describedbelow in connection with FIG. 11.

As shown in FIG. 11, a process flow 1100 of the radio resourcemanagement method according to the embodiment of the present disclosurestarts at S1110, and then processing of S1120 is performed.

In a control step of S1120, a radio resource that is available to atleast one secondary system among licensed radio resources of at leastone primary system in the case that the primary system is not interferedwith is determined based on geographical location information of the atleast one secondary system and the at least one primary system managedby the radio resource management system, wherein, the control stepincludes selecting at least one object that is liable to be interferedwith by the secondary system managed by another radio resourcemanagement system from the at least one primary system, from the atleast one secondary system, or from the at least one primary system andthe at least one secondary system based on the geographical locationinformation. The control step of S1120 can also refer to the operationof the control device 10 and the selection device 101 described withreference to FIGS. 1 to 4, and the detailed description thereof isomitted herein. Then a transmission step S1130 is performed.

In the transmission step of S1130, the geographical location informationof the at least one object selected in the control step of S1120 istransmitted to the another radio resource management system. Then S1140is performed.

The process flow 1100 ends at S1140.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, there is alsoprovided a radio resource management method for a radio resourcemanagement system on an interfering side. An exemplary process of theradio resource management method for the radio resource managementsystem on the interfering side will be described below in connectionwith FIG. 12.

As shown in FIG. 12, a process flow 1200 of the radio resourcemanagement method according to the embodiment of the present disclosurestarts at S1210, and then a control step of S1220 is performed.

In the control step of S1220, a radio resource that is available to atleast one secondary system among licensed radio resources of at leastone primary system in the case that the primary system is not interferedwith is determined based on geographical location information of the atleast one secondary system and the at least one primary system managedby the radio resource management system, wherein the control step ofS1220 includes equating at least two secondary systems that aregeographically closed to each other among the secondary systems managedby the radio resource management system to one equivalent secondarysystem. The control step of S1220 can also refer to the operation of thecontrol device 50 and the aggregation unit 501 described with referenceto FIGS. 5 to 8, and the detailed description thereof is omitted herein.Then a transmission step of S1230 is performed.

In the transmission step of S1230, radio resource usage information andthe geographical location information of the equivalent secondary systemare transmitted to another radio resource management system, so as toassist an interference coordination with the another radio resourcemanagement system. Then S1240 is performed.

The process flow 1200 ends at S1240.

The radio resource management system and the radio resource managementmethod according to the embodiment of the present disclosure can reduceinteraction overhead between the radio resource management system and anadjacent radio resource management system thereof in case of ensuringthat an interference on an object managed by the radio resourcemanagement system by an secondary system managed by the adjacent radioresource management system is within a tolerable range, such that theoverhead of data information interaction is substantially reduced on thepremise of ensuring communication quality of the object managed by theradio resource management system.

Example Of Application Scenario

The radio resource management system according to the present disclosureis particularly applicable for an application scenario in which theprimary system is a terrestrial television broadcast system and thesecondary system is a cognitive radio communication system. Wherein, thecognitive radio communication system can be implemented by a mobilecommunication system constituted by a WIFI communication system, a smallcell base station and a user thereof.

FIG. 13 is a system diagram illustrating an information interactionbetween different radio resource management systems.

As shown in FIG. 13, a radio resource management system on a side beinginterfered with obtains from a primary systems and a secondary systemsmanaged by itself their geographical location information and stores itin a storage device, a control device obtains the geographical locationinformation of the primary system and the secondary system by accessingthe storage device and selects the geographical location information ofat least one object (such as the primary system and the secondary systemto be protected) according to the obtained geographical locationinformation, and the communication device transmits the geographicallocation information of the at least one object to an adjacent radioresource management system (that is, the radio resource managementsystem on an interfering side). The radio resource management system onthe interfering side may receive the transmitted geographical locationinformation of the at least one object and judge the secondary systemthat is liable to interfere with the at least one object accordingly,such that information of the secondary system is transmitted to theradio resource management system on the side being interfered with. Theradio resource management system on the side being interfered withdetermines an adjustment scheme to the secondary system based on thereceived information of the secondary system that is liable to interferewith the at least one object, and transmits corresponding adjustmentinformation to the radio resource management system on the interferingside, and the radio resource management system on the interfering sidesends an channel ID and maximum transmission power corresponding to theadjustment information to the secondary system to be adjusted.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that, the radioresource management system on the interfering side and the radioresource management system on the side being interfered with can beinterchanged, that is, the secondary system managed by the radioresource management system on the side being interfered with can alsogenerate an interference on the primary system and the secondary systemmanaged by the radio resource management system on the interfering side.

Respective component units, subunits in the above radio resourcemanagement system according to the above embodiments of the presentdisclosure can be configured by way of software, firmware, hardware, orany of combinations thereof. In the case of software or firmwareimplementation, programs constituting the software or firmware areinstalled to a machine with a dedicated hardware structure from astorage medium or a network, wherein the machine can execute variouscorresponding functions of the component units, subunits when beinginstalled various programs.

FIG. 14 is a simplified structure diagram illustrating a possiblehardware configuration of an information processing apparatus forimplementing the radio resource management system and the radio resourcemanagement method according to the embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

In FIG. 14, a central processing unit (CPU) 1401 perform variousprocesses according to programs stored in a Read-Only Memory (ROM) 1402or programs loaded from a storage unit 1408 to a Random Access Memory(RAM) 1403. According to requirement, the RAM 1403 also stores datarequired when the CPU 1401 performs various processes. The CPU 1401, ROM1402 and RAM 1403 are connected from one to another via a bus 1404. Aninput/output interface 1405 is also connected to the bus 1404.

The following components are connected to the input/output interface1405: an input unit 1406 (including a keyboard, a mouse, etc.); anoutput unit 1407 (including a display, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT)display, a liquid crystal display (LCD), etc., and a speakers and soon); a storage unit 1408 (including a hard disc, etc.); and acommunication unit 1409 (including a network interface card such as aLAN card, a modem and so on). The communication unit 1409 performs acommunication process via a network like the Internet. According torequirement, a drive 1410 may also be connected to the input/outputinterface 1405. A detachable medium 1411 such as a disc, a CD, amagneto-optical disc, a semiconductor memory, and so on is installed onthe drive 1410 based on requirement, such that computer programs readout therefrom are installed in the storage unit 1408 based onrequirement.

In case of implementing the above processes by software, programsconstituting the software are installed from a network like the Internetor from a storage medium like the detachable medium 1411.

Those skilled in the art should be understood that such storage mediumis not limited to the detachable medium 1411 which is stored withprograms and distributes separately from the apparatus to provide a userwith the programs as illustrated in FIG. 14. An example of thedetachable medium 1411 includes a disc (including a floppy disc(Registered Trademark)), a CD (including a CD read only memory (CD-ROM)and a digital versatile disc (DVD)), a magneto-optical disc (including amini-disc (MD) (Registered Trademark)) and a semiconductor memory.Alternatively, the storage medium may be the ROM 1402, or a hard discincluded in the storage unit 1408 in which a program is stored and theprogram is distributed to a user with the apparatus including the same.

The present disclosure also provides a program product storing machinereadable instruction code. When read and executed by a machine, theinstruction code may implement the radio resource management system andthe radio resource management method according to the above embodimentsof the present disclosure. Correspondingly, various storage mediums forcarrying the program product such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, amagneto-optical disk, a semiconductor memory, etc. are also included inthe present disclosure.

Additionally, the present technology may also be configured as below.

1. A radio resource management system, including:

a circuit, configured to:

-   -   determine, based on geographical location information of at        least one secondary system and at least one primary system        managed by the radio resource management system, a radio        resource that is available to the at least one secondary system        among licensed radio resources of the at least one primary        system in the case that the primary system is not interfered        with, the determining including selecting at least one object        that is liable to be interfered with by the secondary system        managed by another radio resource management system from the at        least one primary system, from the at least one secondary        system, or from the at least one primary system and the at least        one secondary system based on the geographical location        information; and    -   transmit the geographical location information of the selected        at least one object to the another radio resource management        system.

2. A radio resource management system, including:

a circuit, configured to:

-   -   determine, based on geographical location information of at        least one secondary system and at least one primary system        managed by the radio resource management system, a radio        resource that is available to the at least one secondary system        among licensed radio resources of the at least one primary        system in the case that the primary system is not interfered        with, the determining including equating at least two secondary        systems that are geographically closed to each other among the        secondary systems managed by the radio resource management        system to one equivalent secondary system; and    -   transmit radio resource usage information and the geographical        location information of the equivalent secondary system to        another radio resource management system, so as to assist an        interference coordination with the another radio resource        management system.

In the above description of the specific embodiments of the presentdisclosure, features that are described and/or illustrated with respectto one implementation may be used in a same or similar way in one ormore other implementations and/or in combination with or instead offeatures of other implementations.

Furthermore, the method according to the embodiments of the presentdisclosure shall not be limited to being performed only in thechronological sequence described in the specification or drawings, butcan also be performed in another chronological sequence, concurrently orseparately. Therefore, the technical scope of the present disclosurewill not be limited by the sequence in which the method is performed asdescribed in the specification.

Additionally, it is obvious that each operational process of theaforementioned method according to the present disclosure can also berealized in the form of a computer-executable program stored in variousmachine-readable storage media.

In addition, the objects of the present disclosure can also be achievedby the following way: directly or indirectly supplying the storagemedium storing the aforementioned executable program code to a system orapparatus, reading and executing the program code by a computer or acentral processing unit (CPU) in the system or apparatus.

In this case, as long as the system or the apparatus possesses thefunction to execute programs, embodiments of the present disclosure arenot restricted to the program, and the program may also assume any form,such as target program, interpreter-executed program, or script programsupplied to an operating system, etc.

The aforementioned machine-readable storage media include, but are notlimited to, various memories and storage units, semiconductorapparatuses, magnetic units such as optical, magnetic andmagneto-optical disks, as well as other media adapted to storinginformation.

Finally, as should be further explained, such relational terms as leftand right, first and second, etc., when used in the present disclosure,are merely used to differentiate one entity or operation from anotherentity or operation, without necessarily requiring or suggesting thatthese entities or operations have therebetween any such actual relationor sequence. Moreover, terms ‘include’, ‘include’ or any variantsthereof are meant to cover nonexclusive inclusion, so that processes,methods, objects or devices that include a series of elements not onlyinclude these elements, but also include other elements not explicitlylisted, or further include elements inherent in the processes, methods,objects or devices. Without more restrictions, an element defined by thesentence ‘including a . . . ’ does not preclude the further inclusion ofother identical elements in the processes, methods, objects or devicesthat include this element.

Although the present disclosure has been disclosed above by thedescription of specific embodiments of the present disclosure, it willbe understood that those skilled in the art can design variousmodifications, improvements and equivalents of the present disclosurewithin the spirit and scope of appended claims. Such modifications,improvements and equivalents should also be regarded as being covered bythe protection scope of the present disclosure.

1. A radio resource management system, comprising: a control device,configured to determine, based on geographical location information ofat least one secondary system and at least one primary system managed bythe radio resource management system, a radio resource that is availableto the at least one secondary system among licensed radio resources ofthe at least one primary system in the case that the primary system isnot interfered with, the control device including: an aggregation unit,configured to equate at least two secondary systems that aregeographically closed to each other among the secondary systems managedby the radio resource management system to one equivalent secondarysystem; and a communication device, configured to transmit radioresource usage information and the geographical location information ofthe equivalent secondary system to another radio resource managementsystem, so as to assist an interference coordination with the anotherradio resource management system.
 2. The radio resource managementsystem according to claim 1, wherein the radio resource usageinformation of the equivalent secondary system includes transmissionpower of the equivalent secondary system.
 3. The radio resourcemanagement system according to claim 1, wherein the communication deviceis further configured to receive information of at least one object tobe protected among objects managed by the another radio resourcemanagement system from the another radio resource management system,wherein the information of the at least one object includes thegeographical location information of the at least one object andreception power of the at least one object.
 4. The radio resourcemanagement system according to claim 3, wherein the control devicefurther includes: a calculation unit, configured to determine, withrespect to the at least one object, an interference power threshold ofthe at least one object according to the reception power of the objectreceived by the communication device and a signal-to-interference andnoise ratio requirement; and an interference region determination unit,configured to determine, with respect to each of the at least oneobject, an interference region of the respective secondary systems withrespect to the object according to a location of the respectivesecondary systems among the secondary systems managed by the radioresource management system and the interference power threshold of theobject.
 5. The radio resource management system according to claim 4,wherein the aggregation unit equates, with respect to each of the atleast one object, at least two secondary systems of which coverageranges of the interference regions are overlapped among the respectivesecondary systems to one equivalent secondary system according to theinterference region of the respective secondary systems with respect tothe object.
 6. The radio resource management system according to claim5, wherein the interference region determination unit is furtherconfigured to equate an location of a secondary system which is closestto a communication system region managed by the another radio resourcemanagement system among at least two secondary systems having beenequated to one equivalent secondary system to a location of theequivalent secondary system, and add the transmission power of the atleast two secondary systems together to equate to the transmission powerof the equivalent secondary system, so as to determine the interferenceregion of the equivalent secondary system.
 7. The radio resourcemanagement system according to claim 4, wherein the control devicefurther includes: a judgment unit, configured to judge whether theinterference region of the respective secondary systems including allthe equivalent secondary systems covers the at least one object or not.8. The radio resource management system according to claim 7, whereinthe judgment unit is configured to judge whether an object which isclosest to the communication system region managed by the radio resourcemanagement system among communication systems managed by the anotherradio resource management system is within the interference regions ofthe respective secondary systems including the equivalent secondarysystem or not.
 9. The radio resource management system according toclaim 7, wherein, the communication device is configured to, in the casethat the judgment unit judges that the interference region covers the atleast one object, transmit information of the equivalent secondarysystem corresponding to the interference region and/or other secondarysystem to the another radio resource management system.
 10. The radioresource management system according to claim 1, wherein, the primarysystem is a terrestrial television broadcast system, and the secondarysystem is a cognitive radio communication system.
 11. A radio resourcemanagement method, comprising: a control step, for determining, based ongeographical location information of at least one secondary system andat least one primary system managed by a radio resource managementsystem, a radio resource that is available to the at least one secondarysystem among licensed radio resources of the at least one primary systemin the case that the primary system is not interfered with, the controlstep including: equating at least two secondary systems that aregeographically closed to each other among the secondary systems managedby the radio resource management system to one equivalent secondarysystem; and a transmission step, for transmitting radio resource usageinformation and the geographical location information of the equivalentsecondary system to another radio resource management system, so as toassist an interference coordination with the another radio resourcemanagement system.